Karpo Godina - Retrospective

Slovenian director, cameraman, scriptwriter and editor Karpo Godina is one of the most important representatives of the Yugoslav cinematic movement „Black Wave“, which produced numerous socio-critical films between 1964 and 1973. His first radically critical short films were awarded internationally and are now regarded as the pioneer films of the experimental cinema. Godina experimented with the static camera, a key principle of composition that seemed to express distance towards the filmed object but otherwise enhanced subversive irony.Godina's innovative and yet hypnotic short films are part of the apotheosis of his self-directed cinematic productions. Their subversive poetic signature shaped this time's audio visual events internationally.

»This film was banned because it showed the decay of moral values and ends with the slogan “Swallow LSD”. The text in the film refers to the important stations in life: death, love, dictatorship and in the end, swallow LSD.« K. G.

In the year 1972 the above mentioned directors came to FEST (Film Festival in Belgrade). All of them were invited to direct a three-minute- feature film. The conditions were as follows:

1. The film must be shot on 35 mm, at the same location, with equal background, with fixed optics, using the same static visual angle and same background. 2. The film shouldn‘t last longer than three minutes and at one point the actors should quote Snoopy‘s sentence from Schulz‘s comic: »I miss Sonja Henie«. 3. Directors are free to choose their actors.